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Kurt Angle must be the most broken down wrestler in the business that still works a semi-regular house show schedule. Nowadays it seems that he can't go more than a few months without suffering a fairly serious injury and I'm sad to say that we've come to those crossroads again.
According to PWInsider.com, Angle worked this weekend's TNA house shows despite having pulled his hamstring. At least TNA management rebooked the cards so that he didn't have to work singles matches, but six man tags instead, allowing him to limit his ring time to a bare minimum. But personally, given his fragile body, I'd have given him the nights off. Hell, given that TNA's house shows usually only draw several hundred to a thousand fans, regardless of whether Angle is on the card or not, I really question whether he should work any house show matches at this point in his career.
Dave Meltzer on his subscriber only Wrestling Observer radio show added that the injury happened on Friday, so the timing of him losing to Jeff Hardy on Thursday night's Impact and missing out on a top four spot in the Bound For Glory Series was just a coincidence and must have been made for storyline purposes.
Angle has been having problems with his hamstrings for almost a year now. He tore one of his hamstrings days before he was set to face Robert Roode in a TNA World Heavyweight Championship bout at Bound For Glory last year. Of course, ever the trooper, Angle still worked a long main event match and even won, but he was forced to drop the title to James Storm just two days later in a one minute match, after doing more damage to his bum leg.
It's questionable whether Angle allowed enough time for his hamstring to fully heal, as he was back wrestling in TNA rings less than two months after BFG 2011. Indeed, Angle claimed that he had re-injured that same hamstring days before April's Lockdown pay-per-view and the U.S. Olympic amateur wrestling trials he was set to compete in. However, that was probably just a bogus excuse to drop out of the Olympic trials without losing face, as he still worked Lockdown and took no time off afterwards. Though, given his latest hamstring injury, maybe more time off then would have been worthwhile.